Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1908: How to Activate the Chest When Benching, Avoiding Muscle Tightness When Driving Long Distances, the Best Way to Train for Heart Health & More

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

In this episode of Quah (Q & A), Sal, Adam & Justin answer four Pump Head questions drawn from last Sunday’s Quah post on the @mindpumpmedia Instagram page. Mind Pump Fit Tip: Lifting to failure CAN produce accelerated muscle growth. However, there are some interesting caveats. (2:32) Carnival Sal. (22:33) Adam’s potty-training mistakes to avoid. (25:53) The apple doesn’t fall far from the Andrews tree. (35:05) Highlighting the weakness in human reason. (39:52) Caffeine is a powerful drug. (43:48) The guys address the prices of their sponsors. (49:48) Mind Pump Recommends, Skandal! Bringing Down Wirecard on Netflix. (54:42) #Quah question #1 - How can I feel more activation on my chest rather than shoulders when bench pressing? (57:18) #Quah question #2 - What are good mobility practices for tight hamstrings for someone who drives for a living? (1:01:15) #Quah question #3 - Is there a difference in training cardio for cardiovascular health vs. training to increase VO2 max? What’s the best way to train for overall cardiovascular health? (1:06:09) #Quah question #4 - When did you all know it was time to go all in with Mind Pump? (1:11:00) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout** Visit Magic Spoon for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! September Promotion: Skinny Guy Bundle (MAPS ANABOLIC // MAPS AESTHETIC // NO B.S. 6-PACK FORMULA // INTUITIVE NUTRITION GUIDE // OCCLUSION TRAINING GUIDE.) HALF OFF!! Also, the Fit Mom Bundle (MAPS ANYWHERE // MAPS ANABOLIC // MAPS HIIT // and INTUITIVE NUTRITION GUIDE.) HALF OFF!! **Code SEPT50 at checkout** Effect of Training Leading to Repetition Failure on Muscular Strength: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Busty Teacher who is a Man Visit Kreatures of Habit the PrOATagonist for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MP25 at checkout** Visit NED for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Visit Vuori Clothing for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP at checkout** Watch Skandal! Bringing Down Wirecard | Netflix Official Site Sal’s Super Shoulder Movement for more Shoulder Mobility & Connectivity Prime Your Shoulders with Handcuffs with Rotation on a Bench Learn to Fire Your Glutes & Hamstrings with a Waiter's Bow Mobility Session – Mind Pump TV What is NEAT and Why Should You Care About it? - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Bret Contreras PhD (@bretcontreras1) Instagram Ben Pollack, Ph.D. (@phdeadlift) Instagram Paul Carter (@liftrunbang) Instagram Michael Chernow (@michaelchernow) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pup, right? In today's episode, we answered listeners questions, but this was after a 50 minute introductory conversation where we talk about fitness, our lives, studies, and much more.

By the way, you could check the show notes for timestamps, if you want to fast forward to your favorite part. Also, if you want to ask a question that we can answer on an episode like this one, go to Instagram, at MindPump Media, follow that page, then go to the quap meme we posted every Sunday, post your question underneath. If it's a good question, we'll pick it.

And then you'll hear us answer it. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Organify. This company makes organic plant-based supplements that can help you improve your health and your athletic performance. Right now, I'm using a lot of the Red Juice because I'm weaning myself off caffeine. So the Red Juice gives me natural energy. It's stimulant-free. It's got some adapted gym herbs in there that help you might body deal with stress. And I feel way better getting off caffeine and using the Red Juice than if I didn't have the Red Juice at all.

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but like 25 to 35 grams of protein for serving that a normal person would eat. And it's again, mostly way protein. And it tastes amazing. Like the cereals you grew up eating, watching Saturday morning cartoons. Okay, I'm not making this up. Check this company out. Head over to magicspoon.com, forward slash, mind pump, then use the code, mind pump and get five dollars off your order. Also, all month long, we're running a sale on two workout program bundles. The first one's called

the skinny guy bundle. This includes maps and a ball, maps aesthetic, the no BS six pack formula, the intuitive nutrition guide and the occlusion training guide. That entire thing is 50% off. The second bundle is the fit mom bundle. This includes maps anywhere, maps and a ball, maps hit and the intuitive nutrition guide. So that's also 50% off. You can find both of them at maps fitness products.com. Just use the coupon code, S-E-P-T-50, with no space for that discount. All right, here comes a show. Lifting to failure can produce accelerated muscle growth.

However, there's some very interesting caveats. Don't listen to the caveats, and you will burn yourself out. All right, so I wanna talk about- What's the place for this? There is. I wanna talk about it because it's constantly brought up, constantly, about lifting the failure. I saw the study.

I did this thing. They talk about, you know, you got to go real hard, real intense, and whatever. And so I wanted to talk about lifting the failure and it's potential benefit and why, for most people, it's just too much intensity most of the time, but used at the right times, it could produce some pretty interesting results, pretty interesting results. Obviously, there's some prerequisites that you've got to consider before we get into this kind of intensity.

Yeah, well, I'm going to define failure first. So I'm not talking about literally failing in the lift. Like you're working out, you can't move it anymore and you fall down or you drop the weight. That's not what I'm talking about. I talk about form failure. So what I'm referring to is you cannot possibly lift the weight for another good form rep.

So you stop, that means you failed, okay? Not that you can't lift it at all anymore. That's not the kind of failure I'm talking about. So I'm talking about technical failure, I think some people refer to. So that's number one, because if you train to crappy form failure, you end up training poor recruitment patterns,

you dramatically increase your risk of injury. And then it really just becomes about how much weight you can add to the bar, how many more reps you could squeeze out, how much more you can move. And you really start to increase the risk versus reward ratio or change the risk versus reward ratio so that the risk starts making the reward just not worth it.

The second thing is you have to account for volume. A failure set is worth like four or five traditional sets in terms of how it affects your central nervous system and your body. So if you're traditionally doing a chest workout with nine sets and you decide you're gonna go to failure in that workout, I would say cut it down from nine sets to three sets, something along those lines.

This is gonna be different from person to person, but you should definitely equate volume for intensity. And then the last caveat I'll say is failure tends to work with higher reps better than it does with lower reps. Lower rep failure just doesn't have the right amount of volume for a lot of exercises to really give you the benefit. So like if I go to failure for five reps on an exercise,

you just tend to not get as great results as if you go to failure with 10 to 12 or even 15 reps, because you still want volume, right? You still want volume, but that intensity is there. And studies show that higher reps can be very effective so long as intensity is very high. So. So this is an interesting conversation right now, because I'm doing this, you know,

these kind of 20, 30 minute workouts. I've been now consistently doing it for like a month and a half. One of the things that I'm doing different also is I'm really challenging myself to pretty much never go to failure. And what I'm noticing with myself is I'm not, this is the longest I've been consistent in the last, I don't know, say five, six years of training with as far end frequency almost every day, at least four to five times a week, and not battling joint issues. And on top of that, when I started this program,

my thought process was, I really just want to stay strong. I don't want to lose any of the muscle I currently have, and I'll tighten the diet up, hopefully kind of lean out slowly over time in no hurry that way, but it was really, I wasn't looking at this training part of it. I'm going to pack on all this muscle. But what I'm finding is I'm building muscle.

And I'm getting stronger. And that really wasn't the intent. I mean, obviously whenever we're training, it kind of always is, but I really wasn't pushing the intensity. I wasn't really trying to scale up, but I'm finding my body really, why this is interesting to me is because I tend to keep learning this lesson over and over for myself. I mean, we've been touting on this podcast

for over five years about not training to failure. Yeah, I still love to test that. I still like to see where my kind of, where my max is. I still like to throw in a couple sets here or there in a workout every now and then, where I go to failure. And I'm really challenging myself, not too really at all. And I'm feeling the best I've ever felt

and I'm seeing great results. And so I really think that failure training is grossly overrated. And it was something that I feel like I adopted for most of my training career. And it's to the point that it's difficult to completely wean it off. Yeah, I'm gonna speak to that for a second

because I agree with you. I think most people should live for the most part in their training where they don't train to failure. Now there's intensity, so you're still training intensely, but you're not training to failure. I do think most people should live there. Now the challenge is when people flirt with going to failure and they do it for the first time

or they do it in the first week or so, you do see rapid strength gains. You do see like a big gain. So, you know, if you train, you know, smart and consistent and intelligent, you don't go to failure and then you're like, okay, I read this article, I'm gonna test it out. You're gonna see strain gains right away.

They go away quickly though, right? What I mean is you hit a plateau very fast because that button, once you use it, like you can't just keep using it. So there's a smart way to do it in the way that I use it in the way that I use it, the way that I use it and the way that I'm really seeing that it works well is I'll do it a couple times, three times a month, you know, like three, four times a month max where depending on the

workout, depending on the time frame that I can train and the exercise, I may do it and cut all the volume out. So my workouts's only gonna be four exercise, but each one is a set to failure, and then I'm done with the whole workout type of deal. Of course, once I'm warmed up and stuff. And I don't do it again and again and again, I'll do it once and then I'll kind of back off. That's why I don't like to communicate this,

because most people don't know how to intelligently put it in a program. Well, I think there's multiple ways to kind of stretch your capacity, which is really what, I mean, this whole training process, like you have to figure out where the line is to begin with. And so it really depends on who I'm talking to. I think the general audience of who we're speaking to the most,

like what Adam's bringing up makes the most sense. Like it's really not a whole lot of need for you to go to that level of intensity. There's other variables we can manipulate and we can focus on to be able to get you a new kind of a stimulus. So your muscle does respond and maybe we up the volume, maybe we, you know, hold in the tempo position and we up the isometric. So you can like really produce and generate force, but it's not as damaging as say, now I'm overloading my body to that degree.

But also like for me, from a performance perspective in Angle, if I'm dealing with somebody that's somewhat young and resilient and is in an athletic performance driven path, this is something that I would program and schedule this up to a pinnacle to a peak. Like here we've put in all this work for base strength and now we need to test our threshold and our capacity to be able to see how resilient, how strong we actually are in this environment. Yeah, you bring up a good point.

So one thing that I noticed when I mess with this is I actually, it sets the gauge or for where I can predict failure is the next workout. So what I mean by that is, you know, if I haven't trained a failure in a long time, and I go for a long time without ever training a failure, just because like we're saying, the risk versus reward ratio isn't very good.

And when you use it too often, it just doesn't work in fact, it's technical to go backwards. But I'll do barbell squats and I'll be like, okay, I haven't gone to failure on a set of squats for, you know, six months. So let me try going to failure. And as I'm going through the set, I'll always be like, oh my god, this is going to be the last rep.

And then I'll do another rep. Oh, no, I think this is going to be the last rep. You surprised yourself. I surprised myself because I start to lose, uh, kind of the feel for where that end is. So stopping two reps short of failure changes after that because then I start to develop a new gauge, right? The other thing too is when I do it,

and I do it very short for, again, I'm messing with it, but I do it for a very short period. So like if I haven't trained to failure for three weeks, I'll take my workouts for a week, cut the volume by a third, and I'll go to failure, and I'll come back the next workout, I'm stronger. But I don't keep hammering it, right? I don't keep hammering it. And really, you want to consider with programming.

There's a lot of factors that go into programming, but the three big ones are like frequency, how often you train a body part or how often you train your body, volume that's total reps, total weight, so it's weight times reps, I think times sets, right? So volume, frequency and intensity. And sometimes what you could do is you can go extreme

on one of them, but you gotta take away from the other ones. So I can't just dramatically increase the frequency without reducing the volume and also adjusting the intensity. I can't just dramatically increase the intensity without reducing frequency and or volume, right? You gotta look at all that, and it's okay, especially once you're kinda like,

you know how to train your body but working out for a while, it's okay to go extreme with one of them, to take away from the other ones, just to see how that novelty affects your body. And oftentimes you start to learn some new things about your body and how your body responds and how well you do. And I will say this, there are individual variances. Now we speak very generally because we're trying to hit most people.

But I know people who do very well with high intensity, very low volume, low frequent workouts. That's not the rule. It's the exception, but I know people. And I know people that really, really do well with high, high frequency type workouts, with very low intensity, and there's one with volume two. So it's great to learn this about yourself and to manipulate and play with it a little bit, but I would never recommend failure to anybody who doesn't have a lot of experience

to know what they're doing. That's the last thing I do with a client when I train a client is say, hey, we're gonna take a set to failure. I think there's a genetic component, and then I also think there's a, what season of your life you're in too? Like I think part of why maybe I feel the way I do now is I'm just, I mean, I'm 40 years old,

I have a kid, we have a very important job and I'm doing pretty much around the clock. Like there's, I have different stressors that I probably didn't have when I was 25 years old. So maybe my body could handle that at a, like that type of training at a higher frequency. So I think there's more than one, one thing at play here, other than just like certain people can handle that. It's like, okay, certain people can. Yeah, context, life context.

Yeah, life context has to matter too. Like maybe at this point in your life, maybe you think, because here's the thing, I thought I was that person. And because I identified as that person, because I was probably in my teens and 20s, it took me a while to accept that I'm not anymore. In fact, I would say, I would argue that intensity is the one that you have to take away from the most as you age.

Sure. And the next one would be volume, and then it would be frequency. So as you get older, you gotta drop the intensity. So you're not gonna see a 70 or older, 65 year old going to failure, as often as you see a 25 year old. But they might be able to keep up volume and frequency

a little bit, but then volume's gonna drop, and then eventually frequency is gonna drop. Like for example, Jackal Lane, who is widely regarded as the godfather of the fitness industry. One of the most fit men of all time, set world records and push up some pull ups at 50, and at 70 did some crazy stuff.

But anyway, in his 90s and 80s and 90s, he was working out for 30 minutes a day, I think. Yeah. So way less volume, way less intensity he did when he was in his 20s and his 30s. So that makes a lot of sense, you know, what you're saying there, Adam. So I want to address something else you say

because I've heard you say it before and I don't know if you mean it for all exercises or just a couple in particular because I've only experienced it with two exercises. And you were talking about how using training to failure to get a good gauge on what you should set. I only find this useful for me for squats and deadlifts. Every other exercise, I can tell doing it,

like how much I got. If you know what I mean, like, there's been times when I've been squatting and I think I don't have anymore and I squeezed three, four more out. Yeah, no. Sailing with deadlifting, but overhead press, bench press, bicep curls,

tricep push downs. I would say the more complex the lift, the more overall fatigue and challenge it is, the more likely you are to overestimate when failure is coming. So I would agree with that, because squats is the one that I'm always way off. I'm always like, wow, I did five more than I thought.

Yeah, squirrels, I know right away. Yeah, right away. You know, I don't need any, I don't need any of the single joint lifts. Yeah, it's like, it's pretty straightforward., I don't need any of the single joint lifts. Yeah, it's like, come on, it's pretty straightforward. I mean, I even filled that way with overhead press, overhead press, I like, no, that's all I got. You know what I'm saying?

I can tell by the way, the last rep went up, like there's definitely not another one, or also I'm really gonna compromise the movement. It's deadlifting and squatting, or the only two, I really, I say, I, 100%, and I will say this too, you, so sometimes you may think this is going to cut down on the time you work out, because like, okay,

instead of doing, you know, 20 sets, I'm only going to do seven sets today, because those are the failure ones, and I'm cutting the volume down. Here's what ends up happening, especially if you're strong and you're advanced. Those seven sets will take as long as 20 sets, because it takes a lot at you.

Now, maybe not single joint failure, but you go to failure on Compound lifts you're resting for like six minutes. Yeah, I mean you guys saw me today even I was trying to do it I'm just sitting on the bench, you know most of the time because It's exhausting to go that hard, you know So I would not take it lightly if you're gonna mess around with this a little bit But if you're advanced you've got good control and you can honestly stop when you have technical failure because it's very tempting to do another rep when your form is already starting to break down.

It's very tempting to try and beat your previous record by three or two disciplines, right? You've got to have the discipline to be able to ramp up to that degree and even be able to handle it. Then you have the discipline to know when to back off to that degree to even be able to handle it. You know, I have the discipline to know when to back off and, and okay, that's it. I'm done. I think we get a little bit of pushback on this conversation because there's obviously research to support the benefits of training to failure when it comes to building muscle. But my opinion is that it's, even in this contradicts probably what the research says and that's

that I just don't think it's that valuable for most people. I really don't. I think that considering that we understand that the research supports its benefits to building muscle, there's far more factors that you should be trying to play with them and manipulate and get better at that are going to serve you way more in pursuit of building more muscle than training to failure. And I feel like the training to failure is such an easy ad to your, it's like, you could just go until you can

do. Yeah, like that's such as that's such a small, small minded way of approaching trying to build muscle. In my opinion, there's so many other things in your programming and training and diet that you you should tweak that are going to benefit you a lot more than that. To be fair though Adam, there's lots of evidence now in research to show that it's not something that contributes to better results. So there's studies that'll compare it going to failure not going to failure and they'll find that it's actually not beneficial. Some say it may be beneficial, some say it may actually be detrimental.

I don't think it's this great panacea. I mean, when I started working out, there was a lot of debate around this because in the 70s, everybody, you know, Arnold was Mr. Olympia, that's where strength training or rest just a bodybuilding advice came from. And he was a high volume guy, 20 sets per body part, double split routine. So it'd work out twice a day. Everybody part getting hit all the time. So super high volume in the 80s, it was also high volume,

but you started to see it drop off. During this time, Mike Menser comes out with something called heavy duty, which is like, only do one set to failure and that's it. And some people got great results with that. But that kind of stayed in the fringes. Then you had Doreen Aits who came out in the 90s, this mass monster who crushed everybody,

and he was an advocate of Mike Menser. So he did what's called blood and guts, a little bit more volume than heavy duty. He named his blood and guts, but it was still high intensity, max-out-set, way less volume. Well, because he's Mr. Olympia, everything started going in that direction.

Now we see that it's volume, frequency, and intensity. They're all very important. They can all be overdone. And again, the studies can go in that direction. Now we see that it's volume, frequency, and intensity. They're all very important. They can all be overdone. And again, the studies can go in either way. I'm just saying, look, this is a potential tool. Yeah. And if you have good technique, good form, if you've got experience,

you can definitely play with a little bit and see what happens. And you will see some short term, especially because it's novel, you'll see some short term boosts and gains from it. But like to your seasons of life thing, I mean, I saw this with the high school kids. It's like they don't even understand how much effort that they can really push and provide. You can work so much harder.

And that's a discipline in a mental shift that needs to happen first. So, where do you kind of toe that line in terms of value? Well, I definitely see that in terms of your overall knowledge and self-awareness of what you can actually produce while you're in the gym. And now we got to kind of gauge that and be more studious. Well, we need to stop doing is listening to the top body builders and top student athletes. First off, these people do not represent the average person. In fact, if you're watching this for listening to this,

you have nothing in common with them. I'm gonna tell you right now. They are anomalies on the genetic spectrum. No different. It's so hard though when you're talking to like, it's someone who wants to be them though. You're not, you can't change your genetics. Look, I can try to be a- I'm all of a potential. There's some of us. You're not, you can't change your genetics. Look, I could try to be a...

I'm all the puzzle there's some of this in here. You don't say that one. What if you have power left there, so I'm gonna listen to it. Look, I could try to be seven feet tall as much as I want. Ain't gonna happen. That's what I mean. It's not gonna happen. You can work with what you got, but it ain't gonna happen.

What we should be taking advice from is are the trainers and coaches that train lots of everyday people, that train. For example, veteran tourists that are the post about, here's what you everyday people that train. For example, Betcontreras did a post about, here's what you should do to build muscle and this was what really works. And I'm looking at, and Betcontreras is trained a lot of people over time. Lots and lots and lots of people.

You've seen lots of people. And I read his stuff and I'm like, this looks like a maps program. Like you put together all the points. Don't why? Because he trains a lot of people. He comes the same conclusions. Like all of a, I didn't work with you guys

until we started Mind Pump. We sat down, started trading notes of people. He comes the same conclusions. You know, like all of us, I didn't work with you guys until we started Mind Pump. We sat down, started trading notes, and they're all the same. Yeah. We all came to the same conclusion. So, dude, speaking of the post and other people and our peers and stuff like that, did you see Ben Pollock response to Lyft-Run bang guy, Paul Carter's? Oh, comparing machines to like free.

Yeah, so I mean, you poor Ben Pollock gets the same BS that we get, you know, when we talk about Barbell squatting and stuff like that, that everybody references that Paul Carter guy or whatever. And I thought Ben Polick did a good job of kind of explaining. He basically said, I like Barbell squatting because it's harder than the other lifts. And because it's harder, I learn how to, I perceive effort and challenge differently. So then when I go to the machines, I can put forth more intensity into the exercise.

And I agree with that point. I do, I think there's more to it, but I agree with that point. I love that point. And the reason why I'm bringing it up is because of what Justin is talking about right now. It's like you talk about the importance of learning how to train intensely, how important that is. One of the, one another, another great benefit of barbell back squatting and deadlifting is the hardest thing you're going to do in gym.

It is. It is literally like one of the hardest movements that you're going to, and getting good at that then carries over into the whole. Yeah, go do a machine row after you do barbell deadlift. It's going to feel a lot easier. Right, right. Deadlift. Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting point. Yeah, that Ben Pollock brought up.

All right, anyway, I want to tell you guys about, let's talk about the weekend a little bit, because I didn't get to see you guys. So this weekend, my daughter's school did their annual Carnival Festival things. You know, they have like the ride set up games and all that stuff. Okay. So I took... Which you're excellent at.

Yeah, it's a carnival game. That's right. For people that don't know this, like, Sal has a million things. How many stuff there is if you want to do that? Yeah, you do. Okay, so you're only saying that. Carnival Sal is like one of his big names. Okay, for people to understand, there's...

Of course, I got one before you go. There's three things that happen that this is why this happened. That's why they say that. One, years ago, I was across our gym. I was like, way on the other side and we have this tiny little basketball hoop on top of one of the words. The ones that you throw your garbage in.

Yeah. And I had a ball on my hand that literally barely fits in the hoop on way across there and I go, I'm gonna make it and Adam says, yeah, right, if you make that, I'll buy you a car. And I threw it and it made it right inside., if you make that, I'll buy you a car. And I threw it in it right inside legit. So that's one, two, we all went to a gym in Vegas once

and played horse. It's not really basketball, but still with a basketball. And I beat them both, and they're both objectively. Basically, I had the board walk where you had like, there was another way that I would. And there's another stupid golf. Oh, that's right. Top golf, right?

Oh yeah, it's right. Top golf. Oh, yeah. He just like consistently hitting those points but literally dragged it across and it just rolled in like you're good at corner points. Well, anyway, I took, so I went to this festival and I brought the baby, right? So he's not even two yet. And I'm like, oh, I can't wait to play these carnival games

with him. What a mistake. What a mistake. We go to one and there's these ducks that are floating around. These rubber ducks and you gotta throw a ring over their head or whatever. He don't give a shit about the game. He wants to jump in the water with the ducks.

He's saying out of the ducks. Bro, he's trying to climb the wall. He's screaming. I wanna play with the duck. I wanna grab it. You don't care about what I'm trying to do. Then I did another one where I hit this hammer on this little thing and it flips a frog into these, I don't know what they are,

tat, like whatever they are. Lily pads, really pads. Yeah, he don't care, bro. He's crying because he wants to hold the hammer. He wants to play with the rubber thing that flies in there. He's screwed. So half the time I'm dragging my screaming kid away

from these games and Jessica's like, I don't know if this guy's gonna do it. I thought he'd be that fun. He don't care. I want to win him something. He had a car about the prices. He wants to jump in there with the, with the games. How about his, his new haircut?

Oh. Yeah. So he looks like, he looks like Mo from the three studios. You know Mo from the three studios. I think it's like a bull cut. It's like a good solid year you have to deal with like, and you're, you're entering it right now. So I, and I'm sure you remember this arc, right?

It starts off like, oh, wow, he does really good getting his haircut. Because he's like, yeah, right. Yeah, and then they're, then they all say he gets, ah, pussy. Well, Jessica was in a hurry and there's this haircut place. And so, she was grocery shopping. So, I'm gonna go in there and just do this real quick. And they have those chairs that look like spaceships and stuff. He was screaming the whole time and the lady sucked.

Bro, it's like this, he looks like the Queen's Gambit. What's her name? Chess movie or whatever with the high bangs? Right across here, in the back, I don't know what she thought. One side is in there, then the other side. She's like, I can fix it just because like, no, we're done, she leaves. I'm like, damn poor kid. He's too young though, he's in notice. So right, we're done. She leaves. So I'm like damn poor kid.

He's too young though, he's in notice. So right now we're putting hats on him. Well he keeps the hat on? Yeah, no, he's so keep the hat on. We're just wearing hats now. We started potty training. Oh, how's that going? Oh that's right, that's pretty good.

So on this podcast I have shared dad hacks and things that I think we've implemented or done well with our son. And so I thought, I think it's only fair that I offer up the things that I think we didn't do well. And this is, there's only been two big things so far highlights that I don't think we did very well. And we, and I now feel the backfire later on.

The first one, and I think I brought it up a long time ago, was we hand fed Max forever, right? Which for speech development, that's not, and a lot of that was Katrina and I are pretty neat people. We didn't want to have to clean up a mess like crazy. And so it was like, we'll just keep feeding them. Are you guys ever worried he's gonna choke? Is that also wired?

That yes, Katrina is like super, she's more so though. I mean, I am too. Of course, I'm worried, I'm so,, Katrina's like super, she's more so though, I mean I am too, of course I'm worried that my son, so by the way, you could buy these little, I know. Oh, do you have them? I didn't order it, but I've seen it. The only reason why I didn't was because my wife will not let my son chew on something that he can choke on, like she cuts everything into like drinking size.

That's like, you could drink a steak, I'm gonna get it, there's so small, right? Jessica gives a really, a freaking lamb chop. So I'm more like I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'll hand him like the full chicken leg or something like that. She's like, what are you doing? You know, I'm saying that she'll peel it apart of whatever. So that was the first one because here we are. He's finally at, you know, three, three years plus starting to somewhat feed himself and And it feels like we have a one-year-old trying to feed himself. So that was one of the things I think we could have done better.

The second one that is is now the potty training. I didn't realize this and I take responsibility for this one because Katrina had brought it up several times. I'm like, we haven't had three days in a row before home and I just get blown it off, blown it off, blown it off, we'll get around to it, we'll get around to it. And my thought process was, because he was kind of delayed in speech

and he wasn't communicating very well yet, I'm like, I don't want to like get into the potty training stuff. I can't communicate very well with them stuff. While reading the books on it, I was wrong. In fact, they say as soon as you can tell your kid to like throw something in the trash, and they understand, they don't have to be able to speak or say anything, they just understand how to take something

and go put it somewhere, they're ready, and you should start then. So as early as like one to definitely by two, and as you, as time goes on, the longer you wait, the more difficult this phase phases for us right now. So here we are at three. And for most people, the like the three day knock it out thing is really successful

and then they're good to go where it says like, it should take us probably a week or longer because we waited till three years old. So it's been, you gotta do like a whole vacation, bro. It's been, yeah, Katrina's like full-core press run. And let me tell you, it's like, so hands on dad. Oh my God, I mean, and all I could do to support,

I felt like was everything else in the house, right? So I just, I took care of the rest of the house why she is like manning him 24 or seven. And it's, and it's a alarm goes off every 15, I think 10 or 15 minutes. They're sitting on the toilet. Yes. All day.

So my mom loves to talk about how she got us all a potty train, I think it was a year or under a year and a half. And she said what she would do is she would sit me on the little potty and she'd just sit me there and just talk and read, hang out with me and whatever. And then I'd use the bat and I'd pee and she'd make a big deal about it. So I'm like, you did that all day. She's like, oh yeah, when I would put it, I would literally sit you on there and you would just hang out here.

I'd care about all day long, my, oh my God. The discipline to do that. I'm watching Katrina right now and like, I just have so much empathy for her. You just put a newspaper all over the house. Well, she did what she, so we have, when you come in our house in the entryway, we have a pretty big entryway back with that,

the massive tree was that, right? It's all tile. So she's like kind of quarantined him to that little area and brought all his toys. And then I think it also tells you to keep him active doing things like so she's like, day one is nothing on, so he's naked, right? I came home naked and hung around all day

with him and thought I'd make him feel comfortable so we were out of it. I'm sure it was a feel comfortable. So we were The naked party just no pants out of shirt on Overflow that little yeah, so my son to feel comfortable Although maybe made him uncomfortable comfortable. Put your pants on. Just sure not what you, what you, what you, what you, what you, what you the poo, bro, it's what you the poo. Yeah, it's what you the poo.

So the planner poo guy, I, day one is no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, nothing, uh, day two, they say it's like a regression is, uh, underwear on and he's going to make some mistakes. And so you go through like 12 things of underwear, whatever. And then the third day is underwear on all day. And then you go try and have like a normal routine of like you're not just every 10 minutes,

you're just asking him to give him a do it. But it definitely, it was, these three days have been tough. Katrina's still dealing with it now. She'll be dealing with it all week. And I'm like, damn, it's like been full court press. Like we weren't able to do anything else. I mean, you're not. Yeah. So if you're a, if you're a, I'm gonna let Jessica know because she's, she's waiting. She, because Aralius shows signs. Like he'll, he'll, he'll go around the kitchen table. He's in this

corner where he goes to bathroom. Yeah. So he'll go back to him. He does the same way. He does this. He's the cutest thing spot. He goes back there and he covers his eyes. So he goes through it. So here's why it becomes really difficult. And so you're and so maybe Jessica can learn from my mistake on that because I thought the same thing. I was like, I was waiting for more science of him really getting the whole. Yeah, I mean, ready. And we can communicate a little bit, which was like the not the way thing. What you're trying to do is catch them before they actually start having potty behaviors where they go behind and they squat. Because then it becomes a routine now becomes way different difficult because now you got to break that versus having as soon as they can you can command them to go throw something in the trash and they

have the awareness to do that. They are ready to know that this goes in the potty and that you're supposed to do it then and it's much easier to transition. The longer you wait and the more behaviors they have around going in there, the harder it's going in. And that's what we're dealing with. You're going to get, so you go from diapers to potty to then use a toilet, but then you're going to go through a long phase of, when they're in the bathroom, dad, dad, you're going to wipe his butt. That's always my favorite. You know, you're just at a party or something. Dad, dad, dad. bathroom dad yeah you go wipe his butt yeah that's always my favorite yeah part of your

so so many butts in the white uh yeah I remember teaching my oldest you know obviously he's the oldest the first one and I remember the first time like all right it's your turn to you know I'm gonna try and teach him to wipe himself yeah and he got the toilet paper and he just wiped his cheek like on the side right like that's not that's not dude. You get one in the middle, bro. Every used to use a whole toilet roll. I'm like, who's kid is this, right? You know, just...

Yeah. I mean, like plug the toilet, because you just use a whole freaking thing, dude. That is like everywhere. That is just the thing. I'm like, you only need a little bit. It's, I mean, you guys are so, so much further ahead than I am, right, as far as like your kids really taking on

your traits and stuff like that and Sal's son dude is so has Sal's dark since he Was working out the other day and he made some comment to me. I just felt fell out. You can say what he said It's that it's dark humor. So keep in mind. He knows this audience. Yeah, yeah, no He definitely confront him about my I say this and he goes yeah I'm in the I'm in our gym right I'm working out and he's he was up to front office. I actually didn't even know he was here at the time And I've got the I've got my music blaring and I've just been on a random Lincoln Park kick again So I'm playing like old Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park kick again. So I'm playing like old Lincoln Park. Crowley, yeah, yeah. I think it was even that song, right? And I'm super angsty. And I'm getting ready to lift this or that. I'm like, so focused my head. I'm looking straight ahead. And he comes over and he says something to me.

And I go, huh? And he goes, is this you? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, you're gonna go shoot up a school later? No. Wow. What did you just say? Wow.

What did you just say? What? What did you just say? Wow. It's like, wow. Oh, it's like, oh my god. So email. If you were so, you're freaking father's son to say shit. I don't do that.

You know my daughter's worst. Do I? You see, really? Worst. I can't imagine. Bro, she makes, she'll make a joke and I'm like, wow. And I appreciate it because I appreciate that. That's interesting.

Yeah. I had to have a conversation with him. And she's, I don't know And I appreciate it, because I appreciate that, that's so interesting. But I had to have a conversation with him. And she's, I don't know if I have to, did I say it to her? I think I talked to her about this too, but to him for sure, about knowing his audience. Yeah. So it's like, I know you make those jokes.

I said, just make sure it's okay with the person you talked to because some people don't take that the right way. I wonder if there's like a 50, 50 split nowadays because it's so taboo. Everybody's feelings get so hurt so easily, right? But then there's like a 50, 50 split nowadays because it's so taboo. Everybody's feelings get so hurt so easily, right? But then there's other kids that aren't. And they're the ones that are just like,

this is ridiculous. The younger generation is darker. I cause my kids friends are like real dark humor stuff. Like, and they're just out in the open with them. Like, you're so serious, it's cool to you. You know, like, to get in trouble. Speaking of that, so my, where I'm at in terms of with them, like, you're so serious, it's cool to you. You know, like, so you get in trouble. Speaking of that, so my, where I'm at in terms of the development of like what I'm going through

with Ethan being in junior high and all this kind of stuff, it's like he wants to get into more dangerous things and to, you know, kind of explore other ways to have fun with his friends and all this kind of stuff. And he's like totally over-banned. He's like, oh man, it's just bunch of nerds in here. Wow. Like, yeah, but it's the Apple isn't so fucking cool.

You know, it's like I try to tell him like I regretted giving up piano when I did. Like I wish I'd have kept it up, but at the same time, I thought the same thing. I was like, this is so nerdy and not like what I want to be doing. If Tom is Uncle Sal's a nerd, maybe he'll feel better. Yeah, maybe, or maybe he'll be like. Yeah, maybe or maybe he'll be like no So he's like really in the airsoft right now like that's the next thing is he used to play You know nerf battles all the time outside like he's always just been into this whole, you know shoot it guns outside in the woods And I'm like, you know, that's just boy energy super fun. Yeah, it is fun. It's like And I'm like, you know, that's just boy energy. That's super fun.

Yeah, it is fun. It's like, so I'm like, okay, these are way more realistic. The only like difference really of a lot of these guns these days are a little bit of an orange tip. Yeah. That's it. They literally look exactly the way the same, you know, it's like, it's the real deal. And so, I mean, it all sparked,

because I got one from my Halloween costume, you know, because I wanted it to be like authentic looking, you know, you spent a thousand dollars on it. Yeah, I don't know how to say it. I don't know how to say it. The airsoft gun was like, I was like, oh, it was sick. And, of course, the first thing, like his eyes get like this,

because you're dead, let me try this, and he goes outside and like pops off some rounds of these airsoft and he got like so pumped. Now he's trying to literally call, he called every friend he knew and he's like, we have to like create like a place where we can all play capture flag and do all stuff out in the woods and and saw as like, okay, this could actually be pretty cool. But inevitably he runs into some parents that are like you just mentioned the word gun and like You're gonna tell him how your son was selling it though to the kids do the parents. Okay, so like he's selling it like the way the commercial sell to the kids

Real real realistic. Oh Yeah Like you know So we have to have a conversation like this like military grade, you know, like you don't say, you don't say, you don't say, so we had to have a conversation, like it's time to sell it. I'm like, this is an extension of Nerf gun battles, right? Like this is like the next level of that,

like, like, eat calm airsoft guns, and you don't calm like regular, like, you take this tech nine and then, oh my god, oh my god, yeah, no wonder they're freaking out. Like so we had to have this conversation then it was so funny because he was like can I want to do a good job with this with parents like there's two of them that are gonna Be a real challenge for me because they've already basically said well guns not I'm like okay So let's start with the easy ones and then work our way out

So he started kind of like you know building up this presentation of how he's going to pitch it to. And he did it in front of me in Courtney and we're like, kind of coach him through it. Like, oh, don't say that word, you know, and say it. So it turned out that we were like sitting through this and I was laughing because it was a lot like step brothers where they're like doing the whole uh, uh, uh, uh, prestige worldwide. And there's like, I can just imagine like, you know, the music and everything going with his like presentation. He actually had one of his friends create a slideshow. Oh my god. Showing Nerf guns and then this and that.

And then the evolution, he showed, you know, more of the like the less threatening looking airsoft guns that were painted. You know, so it was, it was quite the, you know, you know, it was actually even funnier Justin was telling me that I thought it was interesting, because he's been off air, we've talked about this, about the transition that his oldest is going through. And now where he's starting to want to separate himself from his younger brother.

So he's like, he's an age difference. But the funnier thing that I found out, he'll have funny, that's ironic about this story. He's telling right now is that his oldest, he can have such a hard time getting enough kids that can play. So now he wants to bring us. So now's brother gets to play. So he has a dummy to shoot.

Yeah, let's talk about this. Because you know they're all going to gang up on the course. It's happened to me. I was a younger brother. And I was like the shooting dummy for like paintball. I remember that. And like they just turned on me. And like, so I was like, we can't, okay, I'll have to referee some of these makes sure you're brother.

Have you seen the videos of the... Like in the... Because Airsoft for adults gets crazy. Have you seen it? They were like full tactical gear. There's this guy on YouTube that he's a dick and what he does is he got a sniper Airsoft and he's talking into the camera

and you're not supposed to do like neck shots and face shots. But he talks in the camera and he's like, in the bushes and you're like, in the bushes, he hits him and face the look around and he does all these shots. Yeah, yeah. But he talks in the camera and he's like, in the bushes and you're like, psh, psh, psh, it's gonna face the look around. And he does all these videos. It's hilarious. He's kind of messed up. It is.

Speaking of school and stuff. Okay, just when you think things can't get any crazier and weirder, did you guys see the teacher? Oh my God. The math teacher with the prosthetic breath. You guys know, the math teacher was a, it was a, a wood shop teacher.

Oh, wood shop teacher? Sorry, did you see that? Yes. So this is a, I guess they're transgender, wood shop teacher. No, it's not even a transgender. He just came to school one day and decided that he identified.

I thought they were, no, it just, he, he's gonna be in one day because this thing's a huge bro. No, no, he, one day, decided like he just did. So he got a kind of one day he, now he's saying, I'm, this is me. no, one day deciding like just like he was gonna get a couple of months. Now he's saying, I'm this is me. Yes, this is my identity.

Okay, these are massive, massive, cartoonish, big, nipple boobs, like through the sweater. Doesn't even wear a bra, they're just like, and then, okay, and he teaches a class this way. And it's not a joke, he's teaching, they're very sexualized fake boobs. They're not real, they're prosthetic.

And then the school defended him. Yeah. That's what the crazy part is now that he did it. It's crazy part is that the school didn't do anything about it. If you're a female teacher, and I think it all about his motivation of doing that, like nobody's gonna put their mind there. Did you know if you're a female teacher

and you wear too low cut of a dress, they'll make you go home. Exactly, the dress code. But this dude shows up with these huge puppies. I mean, just see the pictures. I saw it, yeah, it's crazy. Big old nipples poking out and he's teaching a class. You might try to just get in and up,

solid one of them, you get all close, they're so big. And the school defended him. What the fuck world are we in right now? That doesn't make any sense. Does that mean a teacher could go in with big fake penis, just big old bowls for their pants, where you're down here? Let me start identifying now.

Yeah. I bet you. Well, why could not? Why could not you? If you can do that, why can't you do that? Where did we draw the line in terms of standards and all that? It's just like, it's all over the place. It's insanity and it just,

you know what it highlights? Was it Texas? Was it Texas? It was Texas. I think so. It was Texas, you know. I know you would think that would be like, in our backyard, you know what, highlights, was it Texas? Was it Texas? I think so, it was Texas. I think so, it was Texas, you know. I know you would think that would be like, in our backyard, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What this highlights is the weakness in human reason. Okay, so reason is wonderful, but the problem with human reason is we can reason anything into existence and make it sound like it's okay. And this is one of those things. So the reasoning that they're doing as well, it's his identification or her identification.

It's part of who she is. We want to be inclusive. No, no, no, no. They're wearing big ass fake titties to school. In front of children, obviously, there's, at the very least, it's distracting, at the most, it's extremely depressing.

Well, I think this also highlights the way we've structured school systems too. It's just, to me, that's what, I mean, it should be, it should be a competitive system. Teachers should not be protected like they are for, once they get 10 years now, they're like almost untouchable. It's like almost impossible to fire a teacher. Like, it should be built as a competitive environment. It really should be.

So you get the best of the best teachers and let the market decide. You know, let that teacher show up with his crazy ginormous boots and then the school, because of it, starts suffering attendance. And then let it be to where they go, listen, we're gonna find someone better for this position

because unfortunately our attendance is suffering because you wanna do this. Go do it somewhere else. The irony is, if there was actually a woman with boobs like that, which wouldn't exist, I think there the, I mean, I don't know if that, that could even exist. That's how comically massive they are.

So they're not like, no. I'm kind of like duck, well, I don't want to do this. If a woman actually had that, she would probably try to cover and feel kind of like, oh, self-conscious about it, or whatever. Well, yeah. This is to me, okay, it's my opinion. Obvious, and obvious attempt that, look at me, check out, check me out, and I'm, and these

are, these are sexualized boobs. They're not just normal boobs. They're like, I mean, again, if you're watching YouTube, you got to picture up. Yeah. You could see what they look like. It doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah. Meanwhile, you're trying to make a cutting board for your mom, for Christmas, you know?

It's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, it's too, your mom for Christmas, you know, it's too much. So, hey, speaking of cutting, I'll transition out of this. We have been doing, speaking of cutting, you've been cutting caffeine for the last what week now? So this will be week number. I think we're into like week one and a half. So I'm like one and a half weeks into cutting caffeine. And how's that going?

It's hard, dude. It is. Right. This time the last time or what? Because it wasn't that long ago when you did's that going? It's hard, dude. It is. Right this time, the last time or what? Because it wasn't that long ago when you did before, right? It's always hard. You know, it makes me appreciate just how powerful of a drug caffeine is. And also makes me appreciate that caffeine

has positive effects and can also have just as bad negative effects. And I was starting to feel some of the negative effects. One of which is, I got my caffeine intake because slowly, here's what happens, it slowly ramps up, right? You need more, you need more, you need more, because your body adapts. And I started to get these crazy energy crashes

in the afternoon with a high dose of caffeine. And I noticed that when my caffeine gets too high, I'll get a boost of energy. And then I crash so hard that I literally can't even keep my eyes open when I'm driving, when I'm going home. And I start to get other effects to stress responses and just I don't feel good.

And if I add even more caffeine, I don't even get energy at that point. I just fall asleep. So I'm like, okay, it started to hit like the 400 milligram mark per day. So what I did is I started scaling it down and usually what I'll do is try to go cold turkey and just be an insufferable asshole for the next you know week or whatever but Jessica's like

just cut it down by 25 or 50 milligrams hold it at that place until you feel normal and then keep bringing it down so said all right you're right by the way the motivation for this is one the caffeine was getting too high in two I want to be off caffeine completely when the baby comes in November because I want to have that feel it again yeah I want to have that because I know I'm to be off caffeine completely when the baby comes in November. Because I want to have that. I actually feel it again. Yeah, I want to have that because I know I'm going to be my only motivation. Yes.

So I'm down to like 150 to 200 milligrams a day and I'm or off. So are you are you using anything to supplement the red juice? I'm drinking the shit out of the red juice. Organifies red juice like two a day or is that what you. Yeah. So I'll have one later in the afternoon or sometimes I'll have two, one in the early afternoon, one later after.

I noticed a big difference when I utilized that. It's not like caffeine, but it takes the edge off. And it negates the bad feeling that I was getting when I was coming off of it. Yes. You know what's interesting is like, there's a really good study there to be had and nobody's gonna fund it and do it.

And nobody has, nobody will. But I bet you there's like, because what you're talking to, you're sharing something that I know for sure a lot of people have experienced, especially for someone who's aware. There is definitely this milligram threshold before the adverse effects. Right now, most of the studies are all the support, all the cognitive benefits, the energy benefits. It's all positive, positive, positive, positive. But nobody talks about, okay, all these great things, I've been taking it, taking it, taking it, and then I went from, you know, 100 milligrams, 200, 400, 600, now, because I have the exact same thing, and I have nailed it down to, for me, it's literally, if I

do like a coffee, and then two energy drinks, or say an energy drink in a pre workout, that's when the adverse effects start happening. That's when the third, pre workout or energy drink or whatever it is that I'm having, I feel it, and then like, feel like less than an hour later, I feel tired. Like I'm more gionning. Yeah, big yawms in the afternoon.

And then it's always, and that is my reminder, like I gotta go the other direction and come back down again. So, but nobody has done anything on that. Nobody is talking about that. We always do it in these short windows to show all the positive benefits, but I know that I've talked to enough people that are self-aware, that have used caffeine like this,

and everybody kind of says the same thing is that after a certain point, I actually sort of feel adverse. Caffeine is a legit drug. If it got discovered today, it would be banned. That's a fact. It's been present in human civilization forever. It's very powerful, very addictive.

Your body develops adaptation. Adapt normalize it. The withdrawal to caffeine is nasty. Okay, anybody who, look, you get migraines, tired, irritability to press. Those are all normal withdrawal symptoms from caffeine. Luckily, it doesn't last typically longer than a week or so. And the LD50 on caffeine is relatively low. LD50 is the amount of caffeine or the amount of whatever it is that they're using this to rank that would take to kill

half the people. Caffeine is relatively low. And a lot of people know this, but it's one of the number one aside from the, you know, heart attacks and kind of stuff. It's one of the number one reasons why people go to emergency rooms is caffeine overdose. A lot of people don't know that. Caffeine overdoses are relatively common to where people go to the emergency room. So that high. Is it really that high? Very high. I didn't know that. I know. Very high. Very high.

I know. I know the kids, especially, like, get into trouble because they start to have an access to energy drinks and all that. And it becomes, like, somewhat competitive. They'll play video games and they'll try to stay up all night. And it's a real big problem when they overdose on caffeine. And the beauty of caffeine is, if you have the discipline and the awareness to be, like, it's too high, bring it down.

And the strategy that I'm using right now is, I'm going down 25 to 50 milligrams. That's too high, bring it down. And the strategy that I'm using right now is I'm going down 25 to 50 milligrams, that's for me, right? So I'll go, I'll cut it down to 25 to 50. And then I'll wait until that feels okay. And then I'll cut it down again, and then again, and the goal is to get down to zero. And I notice the lower I get, and I adjust, the better the low dose feels.

So right now, 200 milligrams or 150 milligrams is energizing. I feel good. I have a great workout. Whereas a week and a half ago, 200 milligrams was like, that was enough just to keep me being able to speak English. Yeah. Because I got used to 400 milligrams.

Yeah, I noticed it's like, for me, it's like a snowball effect of poor, awful sleep. Like, you know, maybe one or two nights in a row. And then the amount goes up substantially to try and make up for do. And then that kind of sticks around too long. And then really for me, besides having gone the red juice route, I need to mess with that.

But it was really just like, I gotta really increase my water and take in between cups. Oh, that makes a big difference too. Definitely, definitely. And let me set that in salt too. Yeah. Little sodium too. All right, so I want to address something that has been brought up

about one of the brands that we work with. And it's been brought up on other brands. So you do have my rant on the Facebook. Yeah, do people. So we're working with the creatures of habit and they have an oatmeal that's got 30 grams of protein and vitamin D and omega-3's in it. And so, and you know, we put this out and we love it and we're promoting it.

We're thinking about investing in it. And Adam asks people in our forum, hey, try this out. Let us know what you think of the taste because we're thinking about investing in this company, which by the way, I've never done. Seven years we've done this. Never asked people to do that. And inevitably, someone's in there saying, oh, it's too expensive. You could buy oatmeal at the store for blah, blah, blah,

or whatever. We do this with magic spoon. So magic spoon is a great example. Because it's serial, that's high in protein. So you get 25, 30, 35 rounds of protein for a serving. It's not fruit loops. Yeah, they're like, oh, I could buy a box of serial for a third of the price or whatever.

And it's like, okay, two things. One, we never promote the cheapest products on my own pump. We don't care about the cheapest products. You can find the cheapest products anywhere and easy. We care about the best quality. And two, if you're gonna do comparisons, go apples to apples, not apples to oranges. When you eat a bowl of magic spoon,

you're getting, you know, 25, 35 grams of high quality way protein in that. Protein's expensive, it ain't cheap, carbs are cheap. I can make carb whatever I want and charge nothing for it. So. No, I, I mean, I went on a little rant and I listed off with all of our brands, right?

I went through Neds and the Vioris and the Organifies and the Magix Boone and I'm like, every brand legion, every brand I listed, I can show you a brand that is significantly cheaper than this. I don't know what gave anybody the impression that we were going to build this business around introducing the cheapest brands that are out there. That was never our intention. In fact, we weren't even going to advertise for other brands for the long time until we said, you know what? Yeah. I would like to introduce our audience to the brands that we love, that we find, that we

spend money on, that we like and introduce it to our audience to the brands that we love, that we find, that we spend money on, that we like and introduce it to our audience. We're out of deals, so we did try to reduce some stuff. I just think it's so funny when people get all weird light that it's just like, okay, well then go do that. What really matters? Yes, we advocate for Whole Foods always. We always say this, if you can get everything

through Whole Foods, that is the best. However, if you're going to supplement, if you're gonna add a cereal, then we wanna make sure it's best quality. And Magispoon hits the nail in the head. It's super good quality, it's grain free, the protein is high quality. It tastes really good, so you get that benefit

because if someone's gonna need cereal, they want it to taste good as well. Otherwise, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why listen, I used to I don't know if you guys ever did this I did this for years So if you want to do it go do it. I used to make my own protein oatmeal I used to put way protein in Regular cereal because I wanted if I was gonna have a bowl of cereal into protein milk Yeah, so I wanted to have 25 30 grams of protein So I used to do that myself. It did not taste near as good as magic spoon. At highly doubt that. Yeah, at all. And it wasn't that much cheaper to do with that way. You still got to pay for the protein powder.

You're still buying the box of cereal. It's like I would much rather pay a little bit more for a formulation that is already done for me and taste amazing and has all different kinds of flavors for me. And the same thing goes for the oatmeal. I used to, that is the, what made me connect to Mike when he showed me, shared the oatmeal with me, was like, oh my God, I used to make a very similar concoction myself. But you know what, I mean, he's got the, the Omega's in there, he's got the Vitamin D in there,

he's got the seeds in there, he's got the plant protein in there. I mean, you know what, what a pain in the acid is to bring all that stuff out every single morning. We're now I can rip it and drop it in. And like, and you're gonna charge me what a dollar, something more or whatever that

than doing it myself. It's so funny to me when people get up. And the market's spoken by the way. Magic spoon is crushing. Yes. Crushing. It's like one of the fastest growing companies. Yeah.

And I think I think Kirchitzah happens to do the same thing. I agree. I think it's I think it's a taste phenomenal and it's it's convenient and it's delicious. Yeah, solid solid solid product for sure. So I just you know, I didn't see very many people respond to that rap because it's the truth.

Like I don't think we're ever going to try and bring a product that we think is the cheapest one out there. And if that's what you're looking for, the cheapest, everything, I mean, that's what Amazon is so great for. Hey, look, if you want to save money, whole food, stick with whole foods, that's the best always. And there's many ways you could save money with, yeah, you buy your supplements and

Hollywood. Yeah. That's probably the cheapest you'll get. Have some lead with your fat burner. Is there a controversy going on around the Hollywood right now? I thought I heard's probably the cheapest you'll get. Have some lead with your fat burner. Is there a bunch of controversy going on around an Ollie Bob over right now? I thought I heard something on the news before. I mean, still, they got the founder, right?

Like kind of disappeared for a while. And did he ever come, did he resurface? Ever? And it came back and all because China put some pressure on him. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Yep. Yeah, yeah, it was all apologetic. There's a new documentary out you guys should watch.

You know, and it's a German company called, did you see this Doug? I know you're, you know what catch moot shows I like. It's on Netflix, it's called Scandal. And it's the wire card. Hmm, not familiar. Yeah, look it up from your quick. Netflix, Wire card, I believe, Scandal, Wire card.

If you search that, it should pop up. Crazy story. I had no idea about. Companies been around for over a decade. And it's a FinTech company that they, in Germany, they were so proud of because it rivaled the Facebook's and the Googles as far as its valuation. I think it was a couple hundred billion dollars. It's like a PayPal. You were saying?

Exactly. Totally like a PayPal, basically digital currency. Now, what it later, like over a decade later, well, yeah, that's it right there, Doug. Wirecard. Is that what I said to you? No, right there. Wirecard, yeah.

Wirecard. Really fascinating story. And what they were doing is they were, I don't want to ruin the show for people. They watched the show. It's a really good documentary on this, but a massive, massive, over $100 billion company that everybody was rooting for for the long time. It was making its way to the US when a lot of this stuff got serviced.

It just happened a couple of years ago. I think it came out. I think the allegations came out in 2019, something like that. It says until I find a tenacious team of journalists exposed massive fraud. Oh, very interesting. Whoops. What's up everybody?

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You know, they've done studies on this where people will think about a muscle while they're doing an exercise and they'll actually show more activation. So just trying to focus on the chest more during a bench press can definitely help, but there are some things you can do with your technique. Concentrate.

That make a difference. One of them is to flare the elbows out a little bit more. Okay, now you want to be careful with two flare of elbows. If you don't have the mobility and the control, that can sometimes cause problems. But flare the elbows more. And when you grab the bar, imagine you're trying to pull your hands together on the bar.

And I actually do it, but actually you create inside force or force dragging the hands together while you grip the bar tightly as you bench and slow down. You're gonna have to go much lighter this way, but you will feel more chest activation because the action of the chest is to pull the upper arm in towards the center of the body. So that's what you're trying to do,

is trying to create tension in that direction. Well, and also the setup, right? It's real important in terms of like you having protracted shoulders and versus being nice and retracted and set so that forces distributed properly in your open and activated with your chest. But you do have to do some work there in terms of the connectivity first. So I would then sort of regress and try to get more chest activity and be able to connect there and maybe prime ahead of time by using some rubber bands or doing

it in a way where you could be a little more isolated and focused on the chest and the squeeze and then go into the lift. So I want to stress what you just said, Justin, I lifted chest yesterday. So yesterday I did an incline barbell press and I went into it cold. I did a couple like light real real light like the bars, slow down the movement, I actually did a little bit of an isometric hold even to kind of get in there. I did actually some in the isometric position to kind of squeeze in the bar. Just to kind of thinking that I'd be able to just go into it and get going through 135 on the bar. First set already felt my left shoulder clicking and felt it

in my shoulder too much. Set the bar down, grab the bands and so even for somebody like me who's been lifting for over two decades, completely understands the way my technique needs to be in order to use my chest. Great, great mind muscle connection, I would think, right? Still, I have to go prime my body and set it up to make sure I can activate my chest really well. So I can't stress enough how important that is first, and then it makes the advice that Sal gave that much better. Because even if you don't have basic, good forum, forget it. No, and I mean, I got good forum.

Like I, you know what I'm saying? That's how important. You just found habits. That's your city. Because the most of the day we sit like this. And even with me getting it, I get under there, I even had this routine where I'd grab the two bars and I retract and depress

and I get on that position and I want to squeeze my shoulder blades down and I get in there position and I want to squeeze my shoulder blades down and I get in there. And if I haven't done a good job of really priming my shoulders and then priming my upper back for that position, it just doesn't feel that stable and I end up feeling more in the shoulder than I actually do really.

And I feel my chest still working and I could just work through it, but I can feel my shoulders really getting involved way more. They just don't feel stable. So going in and priming my shoulders really well, priming my upper back to where I can hold it more comfortably in that kind of retracted depressed position and then taking the tips that you're saying. So I was a little elbow slur, like flare them out and then grip the bar tight and drive

the hands in as you go down and up. That should get that, but you're right. 100% I was assuming they had scapular retracted, retraction. You need to have that first so you can get the chest to really activate properly. Next question is from Mike. What are good mobility practices for tight hamstrings for someone who drives for a living. Now, isn't, uh, isn't tight hamstrings, uh, way less common than people think, and it's more often than not, we hamstrings that are making people think that they're tight hamstrings. Well, okay, so you have to ask yourself.

You have to ask yourself, what makes a muscle tight? Is it the muscle or is it the central nervous system? Right, so we tend to think of a tight muscle and we compare it to like a piece of rubber. And we think, oh, if a piece of rubber is cold, or if it's not malleable, then it doesn't stretch for it. It doesn't work that way. Your muscles, your muscles are always warm. They're always alive, right?

So they got blood flow, they're connected. So unless it's got removed from your body, or you have a blood clot or something terrible, the muscle's there and it's just as valuable in that sense as other muscles. The difference is your central nervous system keeps it within a particular range of motion. Why does it do that?

Protection. Yes, it does so because it doesn't feel strong or stable outside of that range of motion. So this is why sometimes bodybuilders get really tight. Bodybuilders can get really tight when stable outside of that range of motion. So this is why sometimes body builders get really tight. Body builders can get really tight when they train in short ranges of motion because they build a lot of strength in those short ranges of motion.

And then the body doesn't feel comfortable moving outside of that. So the person moves and does things very tightly because all the strength is in that particular range of motion. And outside of that, now you lose a lot of strength. And that's just how strength works. If I build strength, if I do a half press, I get some carry and outside of that now you lose a lot of strength and that's just how strength works if I build strength If I do a half press I get some carryover outside of that

But the further away I move from that range of motion the less of the strength that I gain gets crossed over So my body just keeps it tight to keep me stable. So your hamstrings are tight because they're weak Mm-hmm. They're weak. They don't feel strong. So does this mean you go work your hamstrings? Yes, but also it's not just work your hamstrings. Also work them and work on good, full-range emotion and work on improving that emotion. Yeah. So that's the key. And I've actually was going to run it through this as one of the athletes I've been working with because it's just, oh, my hamstrings and they they're so tight. And, you know, one of the trainers was trying to just, you know, apply the old static stretching and they're just thinking it's like, we need to get them loose. And I'm like, no, no, no, this is like a,

an instability we're dealing with here. This is a lack of strength. And, you know, trying to, to then coach them on, look, you know, it, you're going to still need to strengthen, you're going to need to do with appropriate load and intensity. So you're lightening the intensity of it because each step of that in terms of like regaining access to that range of motion is gonna require different strength that you have a deficit in. And so now to be able to gradually progressively overload that and get you to respond properly,

it's going to take some work. So I love Romanian deadlifts for this. Yes. And slowly progress the weight as you challenge. I was throwing away. Yeah, right. Really. You could literally just do, and that would be the mobility or the kind of priming, right? Is you just doing it just body weight to get yourself in that position. But I mean, I think you could very lightly load the bar safely and take it to the in range of motion. So to where it feels as comfortable and then try and challenge that range,

getting in a little bit more, a little bit more. So I had a client once that was a truck driver and this was an issue. And we did, we started with, because they were so tight that loading just felt inappropriate. So we started with body weight, good mornings. And I think, I don't know what they're called, where you have your hands behind your head.

Yeah, it's like prisoner thoughts or prayer. And all we did is I focused on hip-pinging, right? So keeping, yeah, keeping really, really good, kind of neutral spine, leading with the chest, couldn't go down very far. And as soon as his back started rounding, okay, that's not, we're not gonna go any further. From when we have later bows in in prime or one of our programs.

We do. Yeah, we do prime. Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, and performance and I had them, I had them do them and each rep, I had them challenge that range of motion without breaking form. And we would actually add a good four inches, five inches of range of motion within the workout. Then as he started getting stronger and it got easier and easier, then we would do a little bit of load.

But what you're trying to do is you're trying to build strength and tell your CNS, it's okay, it's safe. We can move into these new ranges of motions. Static stretching will increase range of motion, but it's nothing increased strength, or I should say very little to increase strength, it's just so little to nothing. So if you just tell your CNS, ah, relax. And you do this by holding a long static stretch. You actually can put yourself in a bad position because your body's tight for a reason.

And if you get it to move outside of that, and then you go do something that requires any type of strength at all, you see risk of injury go up. And this is why there was that paramount study. And I don't remember what it was done. I wanna say the late 90s or the 2000s, where they found that static stretching before athletics increased injury. That's exactly why.

Next question is from Jason Miller 56. Is there a difference in training cardio for cardiovascular health versus training to increase VO2 max? What's the best way to train for overall cardiovascular health? Yes, there is, but there's a lot of crossover. It's like a Venn diagram. So in the middle is health, and on one end is just health, or one of them's health, one of them is performance, and in the middle is like longevity health, right? If you push VO2 max at some point, you start to sacrifice health for VO2 max. So in the beginning, any kind of cardio increases your VO2 max.

You take it, somebody who doesn't do cardio, you get them on an elliptical, they're going to get a boost in VO2 max. But at some point, when you're trying to push VO2 max and you're trying to really push performance, this is true for strength, by the way, this is true for any physical endeavor. Once you go past a certain point, you start to trade longevity and health for performance. So like you look at top power lifters, they're not as healthy as someone who just strength training just for health, right?

But at some point when they started, they were just getting health benefits, but then they passed that to go for extreme strength. Same thing with VO2 max. If you look at like the top, top, top, VO2 max, you know, athletes like top marathon runners or super distance runners, they don't have the best longevity because they're pushing their bodies too hard. But in the beginning of training, you get both.

So now that I've said that, what's the difference between a two? Cardiovascular health, you want to train consistently and you want to maintain a decent cardiovascular system. So at some point, you're not trying to push your times, you're not trying to go crazy with your performance. You're just doing it for enjoyment, you're doing it for consistency, and you're doing it to feel good. So I would say that's the big thing. Well, it really depends on what your desired outcome is. What are you trying to gain from it? Because what you're trying to gain from your cardiovascular training would dictate how I would have you do it, right?

It's almost like asking the same thing. What's the best way to lift weights? It's like, well, it depends. It depends on... It's a pretty general broad topic. Yeah, they're presenting it. Or be more specific, like they said, what's the best way to lift weights for health?

What's the best way for cardiovascular health? Well, I mean, there's a lot of health benefits to different types of cardio modalities. I mean, there's a lot of different versions. Like it's not just running and jogging and everything straight ahead. You can do all kinds of cardiovascular training in multiple planes and explosively.

And there's just, but that requires a completely different skill set that you need to acquire. Totally. Do you want to have increased endurance and stamina? Do you want to be able to run for an hour straight and be okay? Do you want to have more explosive cardiovascular dancewear? Something in shorter durations, but you can push higher, which would be like VO2 max stuff. So it really depends on, and each have their benefits. It's nice to have a little blend of both, but I mean, it's tough to answer a question like that.

And then it also depends on where you're currently at and what you're trying to achieve outside of that as far as building muscle and things like that, because you could tell me that, Adam, I want to be good at cardiovascular endurance. I want to be able to run for an hour or two hours, but then you also go, and I'm really because you could tell me that Adam, I wanna be good at cardiovascular endurance. I wanna be able to run for an hour or two hours, but then you also go, and I'm really trying to build 15 to 20 pounds of muscle right now. I was like, okay, well, those are very challenging

to do at the same time. Maybe we focus on one more than the other. And so this is a bit of a depends question for the person that's asking. That all being said, I'll make a general, I guess, piece of advice around this, or I'll give a general answer, I think is true for most people. If you look at the whole context of the thing,

so longevity and you factor in risk of injury, you factor in the technical skill involved, right? Because running is a highly technical type of movement that most of us can no longer do well because we stop running one more 12. So if you factor all of that in availability and consistency, like the likelihood someone's gonna stay consistent,

the likelihood that they'll have access to this particular type of movement as they get older. If you factor all of that in, then walking has to be the winner. Because it's still something we can all do. We're not in Wally world yet. I'm sure we'll get there soon, but for now, everybody can still walk. It's very accessible to people.

You just walk. You can go outside and walk. You can walk on a treadmill. You can walk anywhere. So it doesn't require lots of stuff. The risk of injuries low as a result. And for longevity, I mean, daily walking, if you're walking a decent amount every single day,

you're going to reap tremendous health benefits over time. Now, you're not going to be a phenomenal runner or athlete by doing this, but if it's just for health, with all those things that I said, it's hard to beat walking. It really is. Next question is from Pharm LaBouche. When did you all know it was time to go all in with MindPom? Oh man.

I lost this one. Yeah, what do you mean? I lost this one. Oh, you tried to go in with it. Do you not remember? I do. Yeah, Adam definitely tried to incentivize us to jump in earlier, I think, than we were ready for.

Well, he was, and I understand why, he saw the writing on the wall. He's very good at reading business signals, but also, you know, we all had kids. And those responsibilities, and so it places a different part of their own individual businesses at the time. Yeah, you're all, yeah. I wanted to solve a little scared. Yeah, I did. I really did.

I wanted us all to be a really scary when you have kids to support. Which is why I lost, right? That's how that was actually the, if I had a kid at the time, and I still want to, I might have won that argument, because I've been like, I'm just saying, boat is you, boat fuckers, right?

Or would you have made that decision? Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, probably still. I'm still just as crazy, I think. It wasn't crazy though. You were pretty logical about it. Wasn't like you were just like, let's just do this.

It was really nilier, anything. Yeah, we were already producing. We were already producing good, decent revenue. We weren't taking from the business yet. What people have to know is that for the first year, we didn't monetize anything. By year two, we started to monetize. We had our normal businesses and jobs as well. That's right.

Everyone was making their livelihood elsewhere than mind pump, but mind pump was starting to generate revenue, even though we weren't taking any of the proceeds yet for ourselves. But it was getting to a point where it was pretty consistent every month, not enough for any, and this is where I wanted to go. It wasn't enough for anybody to quit their jobs. And it was a, it would replace the income they were all making elsewhere. But that's what I was trying to, I was trying to seize that moment was,

I didn't want us to wait till everybody was making the same kind of money they were making, doing other things. I wanted us to be a little hungry, hungerier, I should say. Now in hindsight, do you think, we, I mean, obviously everything worked out well, but do you think we waited too long?

Or do you think? I think long? Or do you think? I think I do. I still think it's part of our Achilles heel. I do. I think you have power enough. Yeah, I just think that, and I'm just as guilty, right? So this isn't me like, I told you guy, it's like, I feel like sometimes,

because this was a passion project, because we had security and other things that we sometimes lack urgency in this business. In fact, off air before this podcast started, the four of us literally all in the Greens. This is something we need to do for the business. We all agree, it's important, it's important, it's important. But because we're not starving or we don't like it,

we don't do it right now, we're all fine financially. We kind of drag our feet a lot and I feel like Had we had that switch a little bit because I've seen it in us right there was a time right before COVID hit We got a little nervous. Yeah, we do we all got a little like it just that was the most nervous I've seen us in set of the year turning tricks on the street Yes, in seven years. So we're turning tricks on the street. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's it. That's $2.20. Yeah. But we had a little, we got a little nervous and it was really neat to see just how dangerous the four of us could be if we were starving. So I'm going to give you, because I agree, but I also want to give a little pushback

just for sake of conversation, because I respect tremendously what you have to say about this particular thing. I think this is not, you definitely have a genius when it comes to business, but I'll push back a little bit, and here's the counter. The counter is going to be that what it allowed us to do

by waiting a little longer, was by never compromising our integrity, because we had a lot of offers for deals and money and sell this product and push this way, this particular thing this way or sell this particular way. But because we weren't back into a corner, we could give them the finger and say,

no, we're gonna do it our way. And let me tell you, we didn't have to have it. We didn't have to. And I like being in a position where I don't have to because then what I can do, because I'll tell you something right now, as much as I, as much integrity as I have if it's between integrity and my family survival, I don't know where I'm going to go. I don't know if I'll compromise my integrity

not. I'm not saying I would but I've never been in a position where I feel scared for oh crap or my kids going to have to move or we have to take them out of their school or we're going to whatever. I'll concede to that. Yeah. I'll concede to that. I don't disagree with that statement at all. I think that's a very fair evaluation and I don'tcede to that. I'll concede to that. I don't disagree with that statement at all. I think that's a very fair evaluation and I don't even know myself. I'd like to believe that we would still sacrifice, but I think that's a very fair point

because it did give us that luxury of, no, we're not, I mean, we, we had the zero fucks out here. We didn't monetize for a year. Then when we actually started to monetize the programs, we didn't take advertising for another year after that when we could have. We could have taken advertising a year earlier than what we did, and we didn't

because we wanted to wait. I mean, we priced the programs away we did based off integrity, where we could have like, we healed and deal, we didn't do subscription model, thankfully, looking back, that would have not worked out so deal, we didn't do subscription model. Thankfully, looking back, that would have not worked out so well. It would have been a nightmare. There's a lot of things. We turned out a lot of sponsors. We didn't do a lot of the tricks that people do on social media and with media in general to get attention, just to get a few eyes. And it put us in a pretty

strong position. But I 100% get what you're're saying because I know that when you're when you're backs up against the wall, we all have another gear. I know that. I know that for a fact. So, and here's how I look at it. It's hard to like, yeah, like manufacture that just when you're fat and happy, right? Like when things are going well and to, but you always considering that, like there's going to be dark days like there's always gonna be something to consider and to to try to Generate that without any kind of real conflict or something that's like pushing you

It's difficult. It's a difficult thing to to create amongst this But I think it's possible now the irony of all this is this is the best success all of us have ever had Yeah, and we've all done lots of businesses. Yeah, we've all had is, this is the best success all of us have ever had. Yeah. And we've all done lots of businesses. Yeah. We've all had our facts against the wall in that position. So it's easy for me to look back

and be like, we did everything right, because we're at, but I get what you're saying. I know that. I know if we're in a position where we're like, it's swim or die, you know, we're all gonna find a way to swim. What are your thoughts, Doug? I mean, I feel like we did it the right way personally.

Honestly, I- You already stressed enough, that's why. Yeah. So yeah, my back is so long. It's already feels like a stress content already. And my cortisol's already pegged to the upper level. I'm gonna be able to- I'm gonna be able to-

I'm gonna be able to- No, I just feel like, I'm capable of pushing through things and making things happen when I have to, but I mean, I don't need to add more stress to my life, honestly, and I think we did do it the right way. I tell you what though, I mean, again, maybe this goes in favor of my argument. If all of us did this before, we had kids

and mortgages and we were supporting our families. I was feeling you would look a lot different. I don't know. I think we would have, I think we would have, in terms of like the overall vibe. Well, I mean, I know we would have been animals. Can you take, so I agree, but that also, that would rewind us back to our early 20s, right? Yeah. So, to me, it's less to do with the kids, less to do with the family, more to do with being a bunch of 25 year olds. Because if you gave our maturity and wisdom that we all have, where we're at in our lives now, and we were, I think we would have been fine. Yeah, I think we would have been fine.

I think that that's the part that matters. Even more was that we've seen a lot more in our in our lifetime and Doug, especially, right? Because he's almost lived two lifetimes. He has seen so much more that you, I think that wisdom, if we could bring that back to 25, it would be better. You know, and I think the question, right? So the question is when did we know? So you wanted to happen faster.

I knew early, I knew, I knew. Actually, and so, I think you even knew early. I mean, I think we knew as soon as the podcast started to take As Craig, you know before money was even involved. I think oh, I knew I knew I knew this was gonna go well Yeah, I mean, I think everyone said it and felt it Very early on and so how much sooner did you Push it and before we actually did, I'll quit our jobs.

Almost a year. Was it a year, but? Almost a year, almost a year. Yeah, I think we waited almost an year longer than I would have liked us to. For me, I was in a weird position because I'm very conservative when it comes to investments, but when it comes to business, I'm very risky.

I'll take a chance if I believe in it, but I was in a weird position because I'd just gotten divorced, left the house to the X so that my kids didn't have to move. And remember, I was sleeping on my, I stayed with you, then I slept on my brother's couch, and then I had a tiny little apartment and I had just sold my studio. And so I was just training people to make ends meet. Yeah. And my biggest fear was my kids had been going to the school that they really liked. My biggest fear was having to pull them out.

Cause my whole goal during that period was, I don't wanna shake my kids world anymore than half two kids or dad and their mom are getting divorced. So that kept me more like, so for me, I had to, when I felt like, okay, I can stop training people and not have to pull my kids out of school or doing something like that. That's when I felt like, when I felt that kind of safety,

but that did make me wait longer than I think I would have. Yeah, because you were the last person to cut all clients off, weren't you? Because even after we kind of went all in, we still, I know we all still had a couple clients, but I think you had the roster the longest. I did online a little bit for a while, but I did that not so much for the money.

It was more to, because you had worked with online clients and you had gotten a lot of insight into training online. And because that was such a developing field, I had no experience. So I did it more for the insight, you know, what was going on, but. Yeah, I tell you you're doing online,

because online came after you cut your clients. Yeah. You were already fine financially. I know you didn't need to deal it financially. I think you did it more., because online came after you cut your clients. Yeah. You were already fine financially. Yes. I know they didn't need to deal with financially. Yes. I think you did it more. I think the clients in person, you still...

I'm trying to remember when I did that. I don't remember. Yeah, I know I did kind of similar. Like I'd, yeah, I started to kind of farm out a lot of my clients to other trainers I knew that I trusted. And that was like, and that was a big struggle, mainly between the conversations I'd have with Courtney because she's the solid, you know, was a nurse

and I was grounded in the fact that we had like insurance and you know, all that. So that was like my anchor, but then it was like, at a point, she was miserable in her job. And I'm like, I know she wants to transition out of this and to stay home and I'm like, now I'm like, oh no, I'm actually just, you know, ditching this completely and starting

this whole new thing and she was like, I don't know about that. Like I've done this to her multiple times in our marriage. It took a while before Courtney was even sold, the business was hella successful. Well, still isn't even sold on it. You know why? Because I remember that.

He's a serial entrepreneur. You married to a serial entrepreneur. That's it. I've done this in the past so many times and she sees how the patterns go. You know, hey, you gotta swing the bat, baby. I swing, man. That's just it.

And, you know, it's difficult. Cause I did, it put a lot of stress on our marriage and everything, but to that point, as well, about us having maturity coming into this, we reinvested a lot of our money. And so it was like, if we made money, we kept pushing it back in. So she never saw that in our bank account. So her whole thought of like how much money we're making

was only what's in our bank account. I'm like, no, no, babe, we got in here and then we go over here. She's like, I don't care. I have it. You know, I still drive in your Corolla. Well, I mean, you know what? You talked about clients going to, you know what? Was hard for me that I dreaded?

Was telling people that I trained for 10 years, 12 years, 13 years that I wasn't going to train in my room. I know. I still struggle with that because it still hurts me to talk about it because I had developed a terrible following up. Oh, I had, I know I had developed such relationships with these people. Some of them it was their entire fitness career, like it was how they started fitness. Yeah.

And I'm telling them I'm, you know, have them train with someone else. It's like, you know, you can't replace that relationship. But I just, you know, look at the look on their face and they all told me, I knew this was coming because they knew about mind pumping. They're like, happy free, but they're also like, oh, they were super bummed out. Oh, it was a hard conversation.

It broke my heart to do it. I was one of the hardest things to do. So for trainers to do that, man, I feel it. I think part of the reason why we were able to make it work is because there's without like putting ourself, I think if I was by myself, I would have had to force myself in the corner. But because we had each other to lean on

and the strengths of other guys to be able to lean on, I felt like that's also part of why it still worked out. Like I feel, at least for me, I feel like if there's no way, if I had something that I saw, oh, there's opportunity here, I can make this happen, and I'm not jumping all over it right away. Actually, that's fair. If I was by myself, I probably would have jumped faster because I don't here. I can make this happen. And I'm not jumping all over right away. Actually, that's fair. If I was by myself, I probably would have jumped faster

because I don't know how I would have done it. Yeah. The other way. Yeah. I think the advice I would give to a younger entrepreneur is if you don't have, as I tell people this all the time, especially in the NCI coaching group, if you don't have a lot of responsibilities,

and I mean, real responsibly, so don't get offended. But look, unless you're taking care of your family You're invincible. I was before I had all of us. I don't give a shit like a parrot you have to feed Yeah, I know that like I know that I could end up on the streets and I'll be fine the next day By myself, but when my kids depend on me my wife, you know If you have parents it depending on that kind of stuff But if you're that if you're that free where you're that free, where you don't, you don't have, you're not married, you don't have kids, you don't have anybody to worry, that's the time to take the biggest

risk. Well, the reason why, because it, okay, we talk all the time about how, you know, motivation is bullshit, self-belief is everything, right? And that if you rely on motivation to get yourself in shape and so like that, you're eventually going to fall out of shape. And it's not that the same thing goes for being successful in business. When are we highly motivated? What's a new idea and it's fresh and you're just getting started. So when the motivation eventually wears off, it's really hard for the average person to get up every day, still grind those hours in. Unless it is literally the only way you fucking eat.

If you, it is do or die. That's right. You, there you got the built in motivation every day. This is why I like that. This is why I like putting myself in that situation because then I'm not counting the hours all day. I'm counting my next meal. How am I gonna eat next?

I'm not stopping work until I've figured that out, like where if you have that luxury and you have that cushion and you do it, then you rely on it to be exciting all the time. And this is the only business, which so all the other ones I've ever built, that very beginning there's a honeymoon stage and it's amazing and it's fun and you're trying to figure things out and then you prove yourself, you the very beginning, there's a honeymoon stage and it's amazing and it's fun

and you're trying to figure things out and then you prove yourself, you figured it out, then you make a little bit of money doing it and now you make it a nice little living off of it and then it's like, wha, wha, wha, wha. This is the first one that I have ever done that is seven years deep and I'm arguably as excited to come to work or more every day.

The only time it's ever happened. That's like the first thing like again, to the point of being the serial entrepreneur, different, it's the interest level. It just goes away. Because you like building stuff. I would love building stuff. We're not done building.

There's a lot of the exactly as much more to go. But I'm just happy that, and I don't know, man, back against the wall, back then, we might have ended up with a line of fat burning. Or something like that. You bring up a really good point. I said, I'll concede to that because you're a great person. You said, maybe you would, I'll be straight up.

If it came down to feed my son or giving me food, I'll steal. That's just, if it was, that's due or die. I'll risk going to jail to make sure my kid lives in my life. I get that. I get that. I get that. To me, I, that's just, that's, that's a hundred percent. I know that I'm that person. And so you're right by doing so, I never had to question that.

I, there was never a point where it's like, do you do in a great position, man? We could tell people F off all day long. And we did. We told a lot of people to F off in those over years. Now, I mean, we still do. We still tell a lot of, we don't say it like that. We're much less. We're a little nicer.

We had a little bit of a chip on a little bit, right? Anyway, look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal and they're all free. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Mind Pump Justin on Instagram. Adam is at Mind Pump Adam on Instagram,

and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad,

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